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Geothermal
Geothermal energy presents exciting opportunities by providing a much lower carbon footprint and more flexibility .
About the project
For more information about the GeoSmart project , go to the website : https :// www . geosmartproject . eu /
precipitation . One of the objectives of the GeoSmart project is to improve the energetic efficiency of the process , by recovering heat from the brine with a limited scaling effect in the reinjection well , as it would block the whole system . For this purpose , a scaling reduction system has been developed to be installed and tested at the KZD2 site . This system is constituted of three main components including a ) a heat exchanger b ) scaling reactor and , c ) a retention tank . While the heat exchanger has been designed to decrease the temperature of the brine from 105 to 50 ° C , the scaling reactor will encourage silica scaling ( in order to enable mineral extraction ) followed by silica polymerisation in the retention tank eventually helping with the prevention of downstream scaling during reinjection .
Design of GeoSmart heat exchanger : Technology choice and specifications The main challenge during the design the heat exchanger was to ensure its compatibility with the brine conditions at KZD2 . The GeoSmart heat exchanger has therefor been designed to ensure a highly efficient exchange that allows rapid cooling of the brine enabling silica deposition only in the retention tank . Additionally , specific instrumentation have been integrated to allow fouling measurements on the heat exchanger . In contrast to the commonly used shell- and-tube heat exchangers in geothermal power plants , GeoSmart uses plate-type heat exchangers ( plate and gaskets heat exchanger with a thermal power of 3 MW ) due to its cost efficiency and other advantages specific to our application such as :
• Higher turbulence induced between the plates to keep the fine solid particles in suspension
• Superior surface quality of the plates as compare to the tubes
• Low residence time
• There are a few dead areas where the fluid is almost stagnant
• Easier cleaning of the exchanger by chemical process or by plate disassembly , when manual cleaning is required .
to help understand the heat exchanger design , a simplified scheme of the facilities that is proposed for KZD2 is illustrated in Figure 1
Current status The project was originally funded for four years and is now due to be completed by September 2024 due to impacts of COVID and other technical challenges . With respect to the demonstrations at the KZD2 site , the design and built of scaling reduction system is now complete . The integration of the system is planned for early next year along with the thermal energy storage system as part of full-scale demonstration of the Geo- Smart system .
GeoSmart consortium The project is led by TWI as coordinator to ensure project delivery including management of the multidisciplinary team of 19 collaborators , each providing specialist domain knowledge and expertise to fulfil the project objectives . These include power plant operators like Zorlu Energy and Naturlich Insheim GmbH
40 Heat Exchanger World October 2022 www . heat-exchanger-world . com